


some knucklehead fool

by bossymarmalade (maggie)



Category: Homicide: Life on the Street
Genre: Awesome People of Color Comment-a-thon, Biracial Character, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-06
Updated: 2010-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-12 18:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggie/pseuds/bossymarmalade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are moments he spends in the big chair when he is completely certain that, somewhere in the afterlife that receives cranky dead police, a certain lieutenant is laughing his ass off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	some knucklehead fool

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from tripoli8 in [awesome people of colour comment-a-thon](http://medie.livejournal.com/1759238.html)
> 
> standard foreword: if i have written something problematic/oppressive to a marginalized group that you find hurtful, please please please don't think twice about telling me. i will never spew hate at you, will never attack you, and i will always thank you and make the change.

"Lieutenant."

Hall says it two more times, bang-bang like a pop gun, before Lewis even tunes back in and gives him the nod so he can leave. Turns out the kid's not bad police once you establish a rapport with him, which in this case means arguing about the Lions versus the Argonauts because Hall is one of the eight people in the world who gives a fuck. Who'd'a thunk knowing anything about the CFL would come in handy on the job.

But then, Meldrick bemusedly considers as he surveys the big desk from his big chair, who'd'a thunk he'd end up here to count out his days? All those times standing on the other side of it while Gee hollered at him, standing and shifting from foot to foot next to Crosetti, next to Kellerman, next to Falsone. Years gone by.

There's nobody left now from the old crew who would really care. Meldrick came up through the ranks for the worst of reasons: he's been murder police for too long, and not a real good one at that. He never had the drive like some people. Never even had the angst like some people. But he had a decent amount of black under his name and a decent amount of black on his skin, and don't you fool yourself, a biddable brown lawman is always gonna get somewhere in Bawlmer.

"You had the right idea with this gig, Lewis," Munch had told him, long drunk night at the Waterfront giving John a goodbye party and trying not to feel the empty spaces too much. "I mean, you didn't _invest_ , y'know? You didn't cut yourself open and bleed out all over the office, you didn't concoct all these hopes and dreams about -- about rising through the ranks, or avenging the wrongfully shuffled. You played this job the way it should be. A job. That's what people forget, that under all the fiends and bullets and chalk outlines, it's just a regular, stinkin', crappy-benefits job."

Munch's fingers were compulsively rubbing his retirement pin the whole time, and his smile was lopsided, sad. Only Ballard had managed to make it, out of everyone who'd beat the pavement with them, which was so awkward that she left after drinking one measly glass of merlot. Farewell and adieu, been nice standing over cold bodies with you, and Meldrick hasn't spoken to Munch since.

He's always been good at keeping distances.

The desk stretches out in front of him and Meldrick gets up, grabs a bottle of the new eco-friendly stuff they make him use now that you have to mix yourself, and squirts it liberally all over the place. It smells like plastic grass and he wishes for some good ol' lemon Pledge to really oil the thing down, the way Gee used to. He accidentally gets it on a stack of classification folders and gives up on cleaning altogether.

Someday Meldrick's gonna feel like this office is his. But, he suspects as he flees from the plastic grass smell rising through the air like a great big chortle, that ain't gonna be any time soon.


End file.
